The Cutting Edge
by Demeter1
Summary: Because the most loyal pawns are the ones you love. Albus Dumbledore.


**"The Cutting Edge"**

**Demeter**

**Disclaimer:** All rights and privileges to Harry Potter are trademarks and property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury Books, Raincoast Books and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The original story and characters and relationships within the fic belong to Demeter.

**Pairings:** Hinted Dumbledore/Snape

**Notes and Warnings:** Post-OoTP. Theoretical Dumbledore. In need of a good romp and also in need of a slap by common sense.

**Words: **1227

**Rating:** PG-PG13, depending on how much you get.

**Summary:** Because the most loyal pawn are the ones you love.

* * *

Whether because of perversity or something far worse – want? – Albus Dumbledore is always on the brink of touching Severus Snape. And not the friendly pat on the head he gives the first year or the hand on the shoulder to pass on a sense of security for a boy driven to despair. This is a desire for calloused and wrinkled fingers to run over sallow skin damp with sweat. It is the brush of white, vibrant hair against black, oily hair. It is the flushing where the blood vessels are filled with blood as a throat is thrown back in a guttural shout that would summon the dogs if not for the cloak of silence cast all around.

It is what Aberforth calls his weakness with a tone of pity in his voice. It is the slightly averted gaze of Trelawney who, for all her willful blindness, sees things she has no need to see. He knows that Minerva has a suspicion, but that she will never act on it because it is already blasphemy upon blasphemy to know herself; she is nothing but loyal to Hogwarts and Dumbledore.

But by far, the worst is Tom Marvolo Riddle, who now calls himself Lord Voldemort and wreaks havoc and terror when he isn't even on the same plane of existence. In the ensuing aftermath of the Triwizard Tournament, to have Snape return to him with dark shadows in even darker eyes, it's as if there is a hot coal being continually buried in his guts and there is nothing Dumbledore can do because he is a master strategist and having one of Voldemort's greatest weaknesses at his side is synonymous to a wild card he can throw into the game at the last moment.

It does not mean, however, that Dumbledore does not regret.

He is as human as the next wizard and muggle, and he cannot help but feel a deceptively heavy iron of guilt attach itself to his mind and Dumbledore welcomes it. He knows it is his punishment, his divine retribution in a way, because Dumbledore is one of those who place much stock and power in symbolic imagery.

He knows better than anyone that Snape looks up to him, that Snape would walk over fire – and essentially, already has – if he asks. Snape's loyalty and obligation run deeper than even the most concentrated stock of Hufflepuff though he'd never admit it. Dumbledore is proud Snape chose to return on his own and gives him absolution though it is not his place to give. But pitiless is the orphaned Auror and he'd rather not have his Potions Master return to him with wounds that do not contribute to his own personal Master Plan.

It is heartless yes, but it is the way to win. Dumbledore is the master of cultivating loyalty and if Harry Potter was becoming somewhat of an anomaly to his precision, surely he'd find a way to draw the angry boy back to his side and prepare him for the greatest role of his life. He'd done it with Snape and that particular dark-haired boy had been far pricklier and far less receptive to warmth and love.

It is a heavy load on him, but he believes that he does what must be done. If historians in later centuries declare him a dictator, so be it.

There is enough of the Albus in him to enjoy the way the strands of black hair brush against Snape's bony cheeks. He notices the wrinkles, the deep grooves and the almost-permanent frown attached to a man who looked years older than he really is. It's not ugly as some might say. It's the image of a man who knows where he is and never strays regardless how hard he's hit. Dumbledore finds it admirable and sometimes wishes Harry could be more like Severus.

There is enough of Dumbledore in him to demand more and more with each turning year. He ignores the exhaustion glinting in a face made sallow by decades of brewing potions and pretends that he cannot hear the weeping after he gives Cornelius the impression that Snape is a little off his rocker. Hatred maketh the man, and for the sake of the world, he doesn't push Harry into believing that Snape had nothing to do with Sirius' death. The boy would hate and better he hate someone who was visibly connected to Voldemort than the world at large. It's to save as many people as possible, and Dumbledore tells Fawkes that Snape had promised himself to Dumbledore's cause long ago.

Everything about Snape is what Dumbledore could hope in a spy and professor of Slytherin House, because Draco Malfoy will never mistake Snape's hatred for Harry as anything else but a Death Eater in disguise, the Slytherins have found someone they at least warily believe in, and no one but he knows the truth about what exactly Voldemort does to Snape in those dank, shady chambers of his. It is the honest, smiling grandfather – though he has never married and will never willingly give life to any children in this world – that lets Snape into his rooms after a meeting and invites Madame Pomfrey up to apply potions to the more serious wounds. He ignores the accusing frown she throws at him, but does recall that Aberforth thinks of Snape as a weakness.

He knows that Aberforth is liberal with words and what he _really_ means is that Snape is to Dumbledore what the Death Eaters are to Voldemort. Aberforth is classically disapproving, but he'd had that incident with the goat, so who was he to talk about parallels?

As long as the information Dumbledore wanted – no, _needed_ - continued to filter in piece by piece, he was satisfied with the efforts of his spy who had been little more than a boy, in wizarding age, when he'd stepped into a place short of hell to help the powerful wizard known as Albus Dumbledore.

It is all a part of the Master Plan, to Destroy Voldemort and Have Harry Potter Save The World. Because all stories about dragons and good triumphing has the trademark hero, recognizable by some mark and in this case, it is the lightening bolt atop of Harry's forehead which Dumbledore has used to his advantage. He considers it a boon that Harry's head hurts whenever Voldemort is near and cannot help but twinkle at the reassuring knowledge that they now have a built-in alarm. Dumbledore paces and allows himself to grow old with planning and worry; it is the least he can do for Harry and Severus. Both, after all, have hair as dark as sin and eyes that burns with a smoldering fire.

Everything figures in nicely and even Dumbledore cannot believe how good his fortune is. It could be worse; so much worse. The world was twisting and who cares that sometimes Dumbledore can taste bitter seeds in his mouth sprout into fury and the nearly uncontrollable need to let it all go. It hurts, of course, but not so much as the ache, the inferno, the wanting to ground and pant and groan.

But Albus Dumbledore is never going to touch Severus Snape.

Because he is afraid he will not be rejected. And then there will be no turning back to his Master Plan.

**- fin -**


End file.
